The Spanish Are Invading!
No, the running of the bulls hasn’t gone international; we have just had a thumper of a month on the Spanish mackerel.
Trip after trip Reefari has been able to put clients onto double, triple and even quadruple hookups of these exciting sportsfish.
There has also been some tremendous catches of coral trout and a smattering of big reds to keep the smiles wide and the eskies brimming.
Folks, it has been a cracker of a month!
We were able to push out wide early in the month with a keen crew that included NQ Fish & Boat editor Lee Brake, his father Graham and the Godfrey clan.
The Brake boys brought along a few trays of jigs and not only got their backs and arms stretched, they also landed some top fish.
At first, we trolled a good show of fish on the sounder with some proto-type Reidy’s lures which saw young Mitch and Harrison Godfrey hooked up and fighting several charging Spanish macks.
Graham also got in on the act and the day was off to an exciting start. Unfortunately the boat traffic seemed to push these fish down deep and out of the range of our trolled lures, so out came the jigs!
Using metal knife jigs Graham and Lee sent their lures shuttling down into about 50m of water and ripped them back towards the surface with strong, fast rips of their rod tips.
We didn’t have to wait long.
Within minutes both anglers were being smashed up by unstoppables that left them standing around slack jawed and looking like stunned mullets.
They went to heavier gear and sure enough some big trevally, including a double on goldens, and at least a dozen Spanish were fooled by the jigs. I’ll admit it; I could get into this jigging thing!
Once we moved on, the same trip saw us in coral trout heaven.
At first the fishing was a little slow, but then Janelle, Harrison and Graham all found themselves hooked up to solid, hard pulling coral trout. The interesting thing was; they were using lunch as bait.
Yeah, freshly cooked banana prawns where going down and coming back up as 60cm-plus trout over and over again!
Graham revealed that he has been using this trick for years, but usually makes do with the cheaper cooked imported offerings. He reckons it is the bright red of the cooked prawns that attracts the trout, and after seeing Harrison pull up two thumper trout and a nannygai one after another on the prawns, I’m convinced!
In other news, our Steber gameboat, Mako has been putting in some awesome trips, with new skipper Sally Vennick reporting some interesting catches.
“Last trip to the reef saw us getting some lighting fast yellow-fin tuna,” she said. “It is a little early in the season for them, but the pelagics seem to be in good numbers.
We got into plenty of good mackerel on the troll, with the Classic F18 Bluewater lures proving lethal in the gold and mackerel green colours!”
“We even saw a sailfish that was all lit up and hunting!”
Bottom fish wise, Sally revealed that they have been also been landing loads of coral trout with over thirty fish taken in the last reef trip – many of a very high quality.
Well, there is much, much more that I could report, but we are out of time for this month, so I all I can suggest is that you to stop reading and start fishing!
Check out the great action on our Youtube Channel at www.youtube.com/reefari and really am looking forward to our Reefari Hardline Mothershipping trip next month, can’t wait!!